


Colorless

by sciencebutch



Category: Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: (kinda), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Body Horror, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Book: 12 Seeing I, Self-Harm, ok i read seeing i like months ago and since then it's lived in my head RENT FREE, the doctor has unlimited limbs in unlimited dimensions. good for him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26024521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencebutch/pseuds/sciencebutch
Summary: Nighttime may not exist in the vortex, but nightmares do. Sam helps the Doctor calm down from one after the events that occurred on Ha'olam.
Relationships: Eighth Doctor & Samantha "Sam" Jones
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	Colorless

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: if you didnt read the tags, there's self harm in here. tread carefully
> 
> literally this is just a stupid projection fic i wrote at 5 am (and - you'll never believe this - but i didnt proof read it. surprise)

The room is white. 

White walls and white-tiled floors and white sheets and a white desk and a white chair and white, white, _white,_ everywhere, so potent that it banishes the shadows and pushes all the color out and he’s going to go blind from it, he knows, it’s so bright, and he thinks that’s a good thing but he can’t go blind because of the _thing_ in his eye so he covers his eyes with his hands to pretend he is but even his hands are white, white as paper, like he’d been traced into this world and sent off without being filled in, and--

The Doctor is in his bed. It is after curfew. It is always after curfew. He cannot leave the room. The light is not on but the room is light. It is too light, white, colorless, and the Doctor wants nothing more than to _leave_ and see oranges and reds and greens and blues. But the Doctor cannot leave the room. If he leaves the room _it_ will know and he’ll be brought back so there really isn’t a point. There isn’t a point to any of this, isn’t a point to anything.

The white always gets to him, around this time of night - it pesters and pokes at his retinas and it wriggles and burrows into his head and he inhales it and it flows through him instead of blood, and it burns him so he writhes under the white sheets and it won’t leave and he has to make it _leave_ and suddenly he finds a way to get rid of the white for good. 

He can make his teeth longer, because he has infinite teeth and they’re all of infinite lengths, and he pulls them from his gums and from the other dimensions he keeps them in so they’re as sharp as knives in his mouth.

His blood is perhaps the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. Glittering like a sunset over the Trio Lakes of Bazo, glimmering like the ruby cabochons mined from Sirenia. It flows from him and it drips onto the sheets like rusted rain. With wide, mesmerized eyes he watches the sheets turn red. 

It’s gorgeous, this spreading stain of color. He wants to paint the room with it. 

But the room is already painted, isn't it? He looks up again and the walls are a cacophony of color, because he colored them. He’d tried his best to imitate the vortex, but crayon wasn’t exactly the best medium for something that shifted and swirled so. His attempt at copying the precise hues and shades left some spots brown. Brown like dried blood. 

He looks down at his arm again. The gash is still gurgling, spitting out red. 

_“Come now, Doctor”_ , the implant in his eye speaks in his head, “ _You know better than that.”_

And then he feels the pain, the _thing_ makes him feel the pain, makes him feel it so incredibly intensely it sears his nerves and scalds in his veins and takes root in his chest and sprouts through his throat in a scream but all that comes out of his mouth is crystal, and there are shards of it in his cut where he tore through his flesh - it bites through his skin like glass knives and it burns over his whole body and he sees himself reflected in it, and everywhere but his eye is covered in it and he watches as blood crawls from it and pools in his eye and then everything is red. 

And then he wakes up. 

He tries to scream, but he can’t - it’s as if his throat is sewn shut, or his vocal cords aren’t working, so all that leaves his mouth is air in a desperate gasp. The Doctor spasms in the sheets until he’s free of them and falls to the floor in a crumpled heap. He hunches there, supine, leaning on his hands, panting and shivering from the sheen of sweat that covers his body in a chilly membrane.

Something’s crawling on his forearm, and he momentarily wonders how the ants got out of the ant room before he looks down and sees red. The Doctor blinks, and as his left eye burns, from it a tear of blood joins the sunset-hued puddle gathering beneath him. 

_Ah,_ he thinks, _that can’t be good._

With great effort he lifts his head, and squints at the garish wallpapered walls. He isn’t in the room. He isn’t _there_. He isn’t…

It has to be a dream, it’s the only explanation. It _has_ to be a dream, because he’s back in his TARDIS, which isn’t possible, because escape isn’t possible. The implant must be messing with his head again, making him hallucinate, whispering dreams into his head. 

Beside him is the teddy bear, in all its worn and half-blind glory, and he grabs it like it’s a lifeline, tucks it under his bleeding arm. And then he curls around it and he cries.

He isn’t sure if it had been five minutes or five hours when he hears the worried voice in the hall. 

“Doctor?” Sam calls, before there’s a gentle knock on the door. It hadn’t been shut all the way, because he couldn’t stand being locked in, and-- _no_ , he reminds himself, and a new wave of tears well in his eyes, _you’re still there and this is just a dream, it’s just a hopeful, stupid dream. Sam isn’t here, it’s just a dream._

The Doctor can hear her footsteps on the carpet, but he doesn’t want to turn and look, because he’s afraid she won’t be there if he does. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to take it, even though he knows for sure she isn’t real. 

“Doctor? The TARDIS woke me up, are you alr--?” she pauses, in both movement and words, before uttering a single “Oh.” He senses her kneeling next to him, her hand hovering over his shoulder. 

( _She isn’t touching you because she isn’t real,_ the voice says, and he shudders.)

“Oh, _Doctor_ , I…” she hesitates, “I’ll go get a cloth, or first aid kit, or something.” 

“No!” he cries, suddenly, shocking even himself. “No, don’t go, Sam.” 

( _What are you doing? She’s fake, a dream, a hallucination. The sooner she leaves, the sooner it’ll be over._ )

“But you’re bleeding, Doctor…” she gingerly places a hand on his bicep and he flinches. He wasn’t expecting that. He turns to look at her, and she’s there. She’s _there_.

The Doctor blinks, and rubs his eyes, and she’s still there. 

“Sam?” he whispers, “Sam, you’re here? You…”

“‘Course I’m here.” She smiles weakly. 

“But--” his protest is small, like a child’s, “I’m still--” _there_. 

“You aren’t there anymore, Doctor,” Sam reminds him gently, “I got you out, remember?” 

“You…” his face scrunches, “You got me out,” he says, more to himself. “I’m not there.” A reassurance, a reminder.

He sits up against the wall, and brings his knees up to his chest, rests his chin on the teddy bear. He doesn’t speak, but sometimes a wayward tear will roll down his cheek. 

“I’ll be right back, okay? Gonna go get some bandages.”

The Doctor nods minutely.

Sam leaves the room, and the Doctor comes back to himself. Stiffly, he extricates his knees from his torso, letting his legs cross in front of him instead. 

His pajamas are covered in blood, and so is the teddy bear; the stuff is dried and mangled in its matted fur. He’ll have to clean it. He sniffs and rubs his nose with his sleeve. Maybe put a new eye in, finally. The gash on his arm is healing already. Scabbing over, he notices clinically. His skin is coated in a layer of dried blood, probably his face as well. He’ll have to shower, get it off. He sniffles again. 

Sam enters and hands him a cup of water, then delicately takes his forearm and gets to cleaning and bandaging it. He watches blankly. The whole thing is done in an atmosphere of ritual silence. They’ve done this before, many times. Ever since he got back. 

“Thank you,” he breaks the quiet. Sam peers up at him, and nods.

“Yeah, it’s no problem. You’ve gotten me out of worse scrapes.” She finishes bandaging it, then scoots to sit against the wall next to him. The Doctor leans on her shoulder. “You were back there, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” he breathes. “Stuck in that tiny room. Again.” 

“‘M sorry.”

There’s a moment where neither of them speak. 

“Thank you, Sam,” he says, picking at the stray thread poking out from where the bear’s left eye should be. 

“I already said it’s no problem--”

“I know,” he interrupts, “But, thank you. For being my best friend.” 

He can feel her head turn to look down at him. He peers up at her from his spot on her shoulder. “Yeah, of course. Thank you for being mine.” The Doctor smiles and tucks himself closer into the crook of her neck.

Silence falls again. This time it’s Sam’s turn to break it.

“I never got around to asking, Doctor. What’s with the question marks?” She gestures to his pajamas. 

He glances down at them. “I used to have an affinity for them. Wore them on all my clothes for a few regenerations.” 

“Why?” 

He hums, shrugging. 

Sam waits for a beat before joking, “Is it because you never know what’s going on?” 

The Doctor scoffs, as if offended, and sits up from her shoulder, a wounded expression donning his face. 

“Why, Miss Jones!” he gasps, trying to keep the smile at bay. She’s already failed, her cheeky grin lighting up her eyes. “How could you ever insinuate such a thing!” 

“Well,” she props her chin on her fist, as if deep in thought, “I seem to remember a time yesterday when you momentarily forgot how to read.”

“Hey!” the Doctor protests, still grinning, “I’ve got a lot of stuff in my head, so forgive me if _some_ things get lost in the shuffle.”

“Like literacy? Aren’t you from one of the most advanced societies in the universe, or something?”

The Doctor hits her with a pillow. “I actively try to forget that, thank you very much,” he laughs, and she devolves into giggles as she tries to wrestle it from his hands. 

He sleeps easy, for the rest of the night.

And, a few weeks later, Sam helps him pick out a button for the teddy bear’s eye.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [tumblr!](%E2%80%9Ceightdoctor.tumblr.com%E2%80%9D)


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